Mike Johnson’s divided House

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is now navigating with the slimmest majority in congressional history. Continuing the trend of the last eight years, the Republican Party is deeply divided as it tries to figure out what it will stand for in the days and years to come. Now, though, with less than 50 legislative days left on the calendar during an election year, three Republicans—Marjorie Talyor Greene, Thomas Massie, and Paul Gosar—are threatening to throw the House of Representatives into utter chaos and vacate Speaker of the House Mike Johnson with no plan to replace him.

Johnson has only held the role of speaker for six months. The politically aware reader will remember that before Johnson was selected, the House voted to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy after he had held the office for only ten months. And it took an astoundingly painful number of weeks, negotiations, and nominees in order to elect Johnson to the role after McCarthy was ousted—time that Republicans simply cannot afford to waste before November elections that could make or break their razor-thin majority and hopes for another Republican president.

With only a two-member majority, Johnson is dealing with what Newt Gingrich recently called “the most complicated House since the Civil War.” And yet Johnson has held the line on conservative priorities against a Democrat-controlled Senate and White House. For example, at the center of the Democrats’ efforts for several years has been the removal of key pro-life protections, such as the Hyde Amendment, which prevents taxpayer funds from being used to fund abortions paid for with federal dollars. So far, Johnson has been successful in navigating a sticky majority and using his leverage to keep those protections in place. It's no surprise that one of Johnson’s other colleagues called him “the most conservative speaker in modern political history.” (Given Johnson is only the seventh Republican since the 1950s to be speaker, Gingrich himself may be Johnson’s only competition for the superlative.)

But critics on Johnson’s right flank continue to impose purity tests on the speaker, threatening a motion to vacate for not being as bullishly conservative as the most aggressive members would like. But while this right-flank may want Johnson to “be tougher” with Democrats and “hold the line,” they have no real proposal for governing. Indeed, when they insisted the U.S. government be shut down because the White House and the Senate didn’t concede to border security legislation, they provided no plan to get out of the shutdown, showing a willingness to “own the libs” by withholding the paychecks of Border Patrol agents (and the rest of the federal government employees not deemed essential, at that).

Foiling his most vocal critics, Johnson has said of his role, “My philosophy is you do the right thing and let the chips fall where they may. If I operated out of a fear of a motion to vacate, I would never be able to do my job. … I’m going to allow an opportunity for every single member of the House to vote their conscience and their will. … And I’m willing to take personal risk for that.”

Such a statement is a contemporary profile in courage, a virtue that is lacking among the political class of our modern day. Meanwhile, it’s clear that certain members of the House of Representatives merely wish to make headlines and raise money. Moving to vacate the office of the speaker will certainly do both. But it will not accomplish the hard task of governing in a politically polarized nation. As the German politician Otto von Bismarck famously said, “politics is the art of the possible.” Republicans would do well to heed that advice, especially ahead of what’s shaping up to be a contentious 2024 election.

Editor's note: This column has been corrected to reflect that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene did not vote to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.